A sky lantern is thought to have caused one of the biggest fires ever tackled by the West Midlands Fire Service. Late on Sunday 30 June 2013 an open storage area for 50,000 tonnes of plastics and paper recycling ignited. This fire in Smethwick followed a similar fire in a plastics recycling centre in Kidderminster earlier in June. At its peak around 200 fire-fighters from four counties fought the Smethwick blaze. Black smoke rose around two kilometres dominating the Birmingham skies but at ground level the air pollution monitoring site at Birmingham Tyburn did not detect elevated air pollution.

The smoke plume was reminiscent of the 2006 Buncefield fire which was seen over much of south east England. Buncefield smoke was detected on the ground 80 km away in Surrey and Sussex where particle concentrations from the fire were around half EU Limits. Since Buncefield, scientists at King's College London and Public Health England have tracked smoke from major fires, including those at construction sites, warehouses, waste depots and the August 2010 riots in London. Intense heat from the fires generally caused smoke to rise rapidly at first. Smoke often came to ground several kilometres away, and in one case in neighbouring Kent, but air pollution problems in these areas rarely lasted more than a few hours and did not breach EU Limits.

These limits are, however, set on the basis of typical urban pollution and may not represent the odour or irritant effects of smoke experienced from major fires.